Last week the Welsh press was dominated by the story of the sacking of the Environment Minister from the Ministry of All the Talents in Cardiff Bay. It even rated a column inch in The Times.

It also sank the launch of the White Paper setting out a new local government structure which will make Wales – as with most policy announcements by the Welsh Government – ‘the envy of the world’.

Most voters, if the reaction of my local focus group is anything to go, probably couldn’t care less. Although some might be wondering how the actor who plays Jonathan Creek ended up as an Assembly Member.

For some with a background in business the whole issue merely confirms that politics is an odd sport. This was a sacking that was brought about not by some policy disagreement or unlawful act, but because the politician concerned had broken something called the ‘Ministerial Code’.

What makes the affair even odder to any outsider is that the sacked politician is seen by many objective commentators to have been an effective minister and a very good communicator.

Anyone in the US Embassy writing a briefing paper for President Obama on Welsh politics would find it really difficult explaining how a politician acting as a politician should have lost his job. For any American used to the rough and tumble of US politics the sacking must seem bizarre.

Look at the charges. The first charge is that he wrote to Natural Resources Wales (NRW) over a development in his constituency when technically he was the minister responsible for the NRW.

The letter merely echoed, many might argue, the frustration often expressed in the private sector at the attitude of organisations such as NRW and Cadw when it comes to development. Even when they end up supporting a development they often take months to come to an opinion.

Too often they seem more interested in opposing employment opportunities. The real question here perhaps is not why did the minister write the letter, but why did he feel he had to?

The second charge is that he tried to get a civil servant to give him information on other Assembly Members. The civil servant it seems reacted like David Luiz facing Klose and Mueller. Panic is the word that comes to mind.

But hang on, what was this information that the then minister wanted? It was information about money received under what is one of the worst benefit scams in Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy. Information that used to be in the public domain but is now for some reason considered to be an intrusion into a person’s private life.

If you are on welfare benefits there is nothing to stop the tabloids highlighting your ‘luxury ‘lifestyle at the taxpayers’ expense. Even though through our taxes we finance the hundreds of thousands that farmers collect each year by just filling in a few forms, it seems that we are not allowed to know where this money goes. That’s the real scandal, most taxpayers would argue, not an email sent to a civil servant.

But, you might say, this information was going to be used for political purposes. So what? That’s all part of the game of politics.

If they have nothing to hide in the interests of transparency, some might argue that the ‘CAP Five ‘should publish how much they have received from the taxpayer in farm subsidies and let the voters decide. Although I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one.

This is not to say that Alun Davies hasn’t made mistakes. The first mistake that he made was to fail to realise that he was giving civil servants, who probably didn’t like the idea that a politician should be in charge, the chance to get rid of him.

His second mistake was to write a letter apologising to the ‘CAP Five’. He should have instead remembered the immortal words of that famous American political philosopher John Wayne: “Never apologise, Mister, it shows weakness”.

Ironically, on the day that Alun Davies was sacked The Times published a devastating article headlined: ‘Our civil servants must not be the masters. An extraordinary leaked document sets out how mandarins think they are more important than elected ministers.’

Running through the document, which was written in 2009 by senior civil servants, is the assumption that officials not politicians are really in charge. One senior figure in the UK Coalition Government quoted in the article describes it as ‘a licence to ignore ministers’.

Britain, as the writer of the article Rachel Sylvester quite rightly argues, in my opinion “must be run by politicians – so that the people have the power to boot them out… In an era of disillusionment and cynicism, democratic accountability matters more than ever. Of course ministers must be held responsible for their policies, but they should be allowed to implement them so they can be properly judged.”

Too often perhaps we criticise politicians who are often in office for a very short time when the real problem, as so many political memoirs show, probably rests with an obstructive civil service.

A civil service that, in the view of former Labour ministers, is ‘not fit for purpose’ and in words of the former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw too often performs “more like a Robin Reliant than a Rolls Royce.”

Even senior Tories, it now seems, see their fellow public school boys who dominate the senior civil service as the ‘new enemy within.’

Rather than condemning politicians like Alun Davies who are not afraid to stand up for their constituents and are prepared to take the fight to their political opponents, we should perhaps be more worried that it seems that no matter who we elect as a government, Sir Humphrey still believes that he should rule the roost.